I Was Here
by Kelly Greyer
Summary: I, Jean Grey, was here. I was not perfect, I was not horrible, I was simply Jean Grey. A girl that you never really cared to know and I took my life so that everyone will know that I was here, and who I really was.


A/N: This is just a short idea that isn't even really mine. I thought about a different way that another fic by joanofarc15 .net/u/36353/joanofarc15 called 'Miss Perfect' .net/s/712422/1/Miss_Perfect could have ended They are one of my favorite authors here and this is one of my have stories about Jean. Please read Miss Perfect and review because without it, this idea does not exist.

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><p><em>"Leave something to remember so they won't forget...<br>__I was here.  
><em>_I lived.  
><em>_I loved.  
><em>_I was here.  
><em>_I've did.  
><em>_I've done.  
><em>_I __was here."_

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><p>I stared at Rouge in her honesty, and she was being honest, I could feel it. She wanted me to know that who I was, what I was trying to do, was worse than death and I wondered just how much of her secretly wouldn't mind my own death.<p>

"So if you were me, you would kill yourself?" I sat up on the bed, my voice barely a whisper as a looked out towards the large window on the far wall of my room, through my perriffial I saw her nod. "Fine." My glossed over eyes met hers as the hate she had for me seemed to wash over me and transfer itself into hate that I had for myself. Hate that had not been foreign to me and that I never truly got rid of.

"What the hell do you mean fine?"

"You wan't me dead, then fine…" Rouge opened her mouth, possibly about to change or re-word what it was that I was suggesting she was saying and what ever it was that I might do. But that would be us switching roles, that would be her apologizing and she would not have it. Rolling her eyes I could tell she was pushing aside what I just said, she didn't think I was serious, not really…but I was.

"Get over yoah fucking self Jean, for all our sakes."

"Get the fuck out Rouge, for your sake." She wouldn't fight me on that I knew, after what I had just displayed to her she figured I was probably capable of anything in this moment of weakness. Her fear got the best of her and she headed for the door, opening it and slamming it for emphasis.

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><p>I wasn't up here for Rouge. I would never be up here for Rouge or anyone else for that matter, at least not in that way. I stood on the edge of the roof of the institute, holding one foot out over the edge while balancing with ease on the other. This was what I wanted, I was up here because I wanted to be, because Miss Perfect needed to die and this was the only way I saw that happening. In their heads, this would destroy that idea.<p>

If who I was, what I was struggling with had driven me here to this point now, then maybe I really wasn't that perfect. Maybe they were wrong and they would be sorry for that and in their remorse they would wonder if maybe they hadn't have joked around and made jokes that were only funny to themselves I wouldn't be standing here now. What will kill them is that half of them will beat themselves up for the fact that they don't know, the other half will blame themselves because they know that had they said something else, done something different, I wouldn't be here…they're wrong too, I still would be.

And while Miss Perfect disappears mentally, she is also no more physically. She is gone after this, they no longer have to look at her and be reminded of what she was, and in this result so am I. If the death of Miss Perfect means the death of Jean Grey, well that is just to damn bad.

I glanced over the mansion grounds, anger in my heart but tears in my eyes. They could run freely now, no one was watching.

I step back onto the edge. Both feet planted firmly now and I turned, my back facing the world and without a second thought, I let myself fall.

I was dead before I hit the ground.

I wonder how long it'll take them to notice I'm gone.

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><p>Rouge sat in her room that she shared with Kitty, still reeling in her anger from her fight that she had with Jean. That was hours ago now however and she was trying to push it away from her mind now, Jean just always managed to make her so angry. A knock at the door grabbed her attention as she turned towards it. "It's open." Rouge called out and the door pushed open to reveal Scott.<p>

"Hey Rouge, have you seen Jean? I haven't been able to find her since earlier."

"No." Was all Rouge said as she looked out in front of her, anger written on her face.

Scott nodded and closed the door as he knew Rouge had nothing more to say. He had been looking for Jean for a while now. He knew how upset she was and only wanted to make sure she was okay but she had disappeared without apparently anyone seeing her. He knew she hadn't left the mansion because there had been students in the lobby who hadn't seen her since she bolted into her room. Her car was also still in the garage. Walking back towards her room he decided to check there again just in case she had come back from wherever it was she was hiding.

"Are you looking for Jean?" Scott turned away from Jean's empty room and to Amara who was talking to him.

"Yeah you seen her?" Scott was already relieved that someone seemed to know where she was.

"I saw her heading to the attic some time ago, I dunno if she's still there or not though." Amara motioned behind her in the general direction of the attic as she shrugged, sharing with Scott what she could and then heading on to do whatever she was headed to do before she stopped to talk to him.

"Thanks Amara." Scott called to her as he headed to the attic.

Scott climbed the stairs to the attic, the door at the top of the stairs already open and he smiled, preparing to see her as he entered, closing the door behind him. Scott was only met with the clutter and moist atmosphere that was always accompanied with the space that hardly anyone ever visited, he could only imagine why Jean had felt some need to come in here. "Jean?" He called looking around, as he turned, he saw the hatch to the roof was open and that had to be where she was.

Climbing that latter he lifted himself completely up and onto the roof. It too was empty and his brow furrowed in confusion and at his watch Scott saw that it was about 5 o'clock and he had been searching since about 3. He put his hands on his hips and sighed.

It was rather calming up here, he thought to himself. The breeze was light as the sun was going down. It was quiet and still, peaceful. Being up here made you feel alone to be with your own thoughts. He imagined for Jean this was a place she would rarely want to visit, because to her it would mean being alone with everyone else's thoughts…but then again that wasn't something new to her, she could possibly love it up here.

He imagined her sitting atop of the closes ledge to the hatch; her knees hugged to her chest, her red hair blowing gracefully in the breeze as the sun set behind her, illuminating her body like the goddess that she was, smiling at him. The thought made him smile as he walked over to the ledge he imagined her on. She would show eventually, ever since he had known her she was always very good at making herself scarce when she wanted to. When they were kids, he could never win with her at an overly competitive game of hide-n-seek.

Scott leaned on the ledge and watched the sun, he wanted to be watching it with Jean who had always appreciated moments like these, and right now it seemed like a waste of one.

The view was absolutely amazing up here. He could see over the trees of the forest that seemed to just go on and on in front of him, the courtyard and the back lake of the mansion looked beautiful to him as well at his sides. Scott only wished two things in this moment: 1, that again, Jean was with him, and 2; that the array of colors before him were clearer and not just shades of red.

He dropped his head at that thought, looking over the edge of the roof. The grass and the various bushes below him were just dark and darker shades of the color….but there was something else down there…he couldn't make it out, but there was a splash of a bright red..a vibrant red…a shade that was familiar to him and unique in only one way, it was the shade of Jean's hair.

He stood up and looked harder, Jean's hair was the only thing that had ever been distinct to him and he had never saw the shade anywhere else and so the object peeking out of the dark grass and bushes puzzled him. After staring at it for a while his face contorted in fear and his stomach and his heart both dropped at the exact same time in a way that gave him physical pain as it dawned on him why this object was so distant and reminded him of the shade of Jean's hair….it was because it was Jean's hair, and attached to it was Jean.

"JEAN!"

Scott practically jumped down the ladder of the hatch and bolted down the stairs, tears were burning down his cheeks as he just couldn't manage to run fast enough. "LOGAN! MS. MONROE! PROFESSOR!" Scott yelled the names of the teachers who were currently at the institute as he ran three at a time down three flights of stairs hoping that they heard him and would follow him. He was screaming at the top of his lungs as he had no time to stop and caught the attention of Logan and Ororo who were currently in the lobby.

They looked up from their tasks to see Scott flying down the stairs and towards the kitchen with a desperateness that they had never seen before. They rose in sheer curiosity with the knowledge that something had to be wrong. Rising they ran behind him as he practically took the kitchen door that led to the outside off of its hinges. He sprinted across the grass to the edge of the mansion, Ororo and Logan behind him and a crowd of students spilling out of the door at the sound of the yelling.

Turning the edge of the mansion Scott stopped and what he made out…if it were ever possible for the heart to physically break into pieces on its own and slip down into the pit of the stomach, it was now, because Scott could testify that that was what was going on inside of his body. As he stopped, Ororo and Logan caught up to him as he slowly walked over to the most beautiful shade of red that they had ever seen but never noticed, never appreciated its true worth, its true beauty.

His body shook with sobs as he cried loudly as if so that the rest of the world could hear his pain. There was no reason for him to check for a pulse, her body was contorted in a way that even Jean shouldn't be capable of and her skin was pale and lifeless. He sat down and pulled her body completely out of the bush that she had landed in holding her head in his lap as he cried, rubbing her red hair out of her face which was cold to the touch.

The remaining students who had been attracted with Scott's screaming had been pulled even further out of the mansion at Scott's crying and saw their friend, their team member, their house-mate laying with a stillness that would forever haunt their sleep.

The weather had suddenly changed and it become cold. Lightening lit up the sky and with an ear-wrecking loudness, a long roar of thunder overpowered the sound of the world. Ororo inhaled sharply as if someone had drove a sword through her gut and twisted it and the thunder stopped. She covered her mouth with both hands as tears built up in her blue eyes, once they spilled over the rain came down in heavy sheets, Logan was glad for this though, he didn't want the students to see him crying.

He turned to face them, "Go.." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Go back inside." He didn't want them to see what they had already saw, but at the very least he didn't want them to soak in the moment. As he took a step towards the small crowd who all seemed to embrace each other, they reluctantly turned to leave, leaving one student there staring past Logan and at the girl on the ground. Logan looked up at Rouge and her eyes met his, there was shock written on her face and guilt in her sunken stance. Logan motioned back towards the mansion with his eyes and slowly she walked back, never taking her eyes off of Jean.

Scott had grown silent, tears were still running from under his glasses but his face was no longer contorted and sobs no longer shook his body. He was holding onto Jean tightly as he sat in the grass, the rain matting down his hair onto his forehead as he rocked back-and-forth with her in his arms. Ororo and Logan both approached him, they imagined if his glasses did not hide his eyes they would be distant, somewhere with who Jean was and no more would be.

What do you say to that? What do you do with that?

Ororo and Logan kneeled before him, Ororo glanced at Jean in his arms and turned away attempting to not erupt in front of the boy, but then again, what did it matter?

She could only imagine what it was that Scott was feeling, but she knew what she was feeling. It was written in the weather; anger, sadness. Anger at how she had no idea that there was something in this innocent girl that would drive her off the top of the roof of the mansion. Something that was eating her alive until she could no longer deal with it, something that was defeating her but she could not find the strength to come and talk with Ororo or anyone about it.

Jean was immensely important in Ororo's life just as she was in Logan's and the professors' and Hank's and everyone else…but with her it was different.

When Jean had come to the institute, she was a small girl weakened physically by a two-year coma and almost destroyed mentally and emotionally by the death of her best friend, the emergence of her powers, and the rejection of her parents. At such a young age her self-esteem was almost nonexistent and she had already learned to hate herself. Ororo however saw something in her that she only wanted the girl to see in herself, and while the other adults saw the greatness in her as well, Ororo was the only woman in the institute, and the naturing mother-like side of her felt as if as long as Jean was sunken in this shell of self-pity and depression she would not go one night without doing all that she could in 24-hour spans to break that shell and offer her her hand.

Jean began to see Ororo as a mother figure more than just a teacher or instructor, and unlike her own mother, Ororo would never abandon her and would never fear her.

She remembered nights of sleeping with Jean as a child, her small fragile frame sinking more into Ororo's body than the bed and pillows under her. To Jean, there had been something that she couldn't quite put her hands on that made being in Ororo's arms the safest most comfortable place of all, and time had done nothing to change that. Jean was like the daughter that Ororo had always wanted and Ororo the mother that Jean wished her own to be.

The moments that Jean and Ororo both treasure the most in all of their time at the mansion, were the moments between them. The talks that they had in the middle of the night, the tears that Jean had shed on Ororo's shoulders, and the silence that was not something awkward or foreign but satisfying, the silence that invoked them while they sat next to each other in Ororo's garden.

Jean was thankful that Ororo had been there to watch her grow up, because without her Jean often wondered what would have become of her. It was something that she expressed to Ororo before and something that Ororo was glad to be apart of, glad that Jean credited who she had become to mainly the efforts of Ororo. Their relationship was cherished and Jean had always sought her advice, so she could not figure out why now, why today, why with this had Jean not sought out Ororo's advice?

Why had she not sought Ororo's embrace?

Why had she not attempted to talk to her about whatever made her insides churn and the back of her throat burn?

Why, why why?

The uncertainty was already starting to eat at her as she wondered what could have been done differently to stop this. So what did it matter?

Ororo turned to Scott as she placed a hand on the side of his face as she looked down at Jean again. She ran her hands over Jean's frame, not touching her body as she moved, Ororo caught site of Jean's palm where something was written on it. She gabbed her cold hand and turned it over, gently touching her fingertips and reading what was written there in black marker in capital letters: I WAS HERE.

"Come one Scott." Logan grabbed Scott's shoulders and tried to pull him away from Jean's body. After some effort, Scott finally let go and rose to his feet, though Logan thought he might collapse at any moment. Logan begin to lead him inside out of the pouring rain, leaving Ororo with Jean..or Jean's body, Jean was gone. Ororo looked at her, placed a hand on the broken heart of a broken girl and dropped her head overcome would grief.

"Oh God Jean."

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><p>I wonder how they'll remember me.<p>

I wonder how long they'll remember me.

I wonder if I was successful in killing Miss Perfect.

I don't know any of those answers.

I couldn't tell you now really if I made the right decision, but it was the decision that I wanted to make. One that I think I had to make, if it made any sense or not to anyone in the mansion.

Regardless, I _was_ there, fragile in my despair, wrecked with what they wanted me to be, destroyed with how much I played into it. I hope one day they'll forgive me for this, because I've forgiven them….but I suppose that it's much too late for that. You see, I was everything that I hated and I had to fix that, I had to take everything into my own hands and get rid of all that I collected because it was useless and in that state I wasn't Miss Perfect, I was just useless. You know me as Miss Perfect but that is not who I am, it was never who I was but you never knew this. Don't cry for me, because it was you who helped me come to this conclusion. I killed Miss Perfect and maybe one day everyone will realize that it was some one else they were living with.

And maybe one day they will know _my_ name.

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><p>FIN<p> 


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